The Passing of a Memory
by YouLookLikeFOOD
Summary: Donna Noble has lived a good life. So what's missing? As she lies on her deathbed and contemplates who she never was, a stranger arrives to fill in the blanks... One Shot.


That hole in her heart remained, despite all that she did in her life. It could not be explained, it could not be reasoned away, and it could never be filled.

Donna stared out of the window, tracing gentle patterns on it with old, weathered fingers. The rain splattered against the glass from outside, but in here it was warm and safe. Here, the calm and serenity enveloped and surrounded her. A fire crackled in the hearth, its orange glow almost returning her white hair to its former, vibrant color.

She continued to gaze outside, out to the street, made gloomy by the harsh weather. Those few people who had ventured into the downpour were hurriedly rushing to their homes, to their own safety. Donna almost wished she were outside, out in that bracing wind, no longer safe but out in the world. A world of stark reality that was somehow beautiful in its own, terrifying way.

She turned away. How nostalgic she'd gotten in her age! Surely she wasn't so old that she had lost her spirit, had lost the ability to slap the cheek out of someone who deserved it. Her eyes rested on a photo of a church, with a young, happy couple standing in front of it. She in a wedding dress, he in a tuxedo. Why did she always want to laugh when she saw that photo? Why did it instill such strange feelings inside her? Why did she not think of her husband when she saw that wedding dress? Why was she reminded of someone else, someone whose face she couldn't quite recall…?

The phone's shrill call brought her out of her wonderings. She debated standing and answering it, but decided against it. She could barely move as it was, and if she did stand, she suspected the phone would stop ringing by the time she got there, anyway. She tilted her head back and closed her eyes, trying to drown out the mechanical sound, and to listen only to the droning of the rain. She'd had many beautiful memories of the rain, many happy times. Her children, she recalled, had quite a fondness for puddles. It was nigh impossible to remove them from a place where there was water; and rainy days were no exception.

The phone's ringing ended in a long tone; an analog sound, but a familiar one. A cool, computerized voice asked for the caller to leave a message, and another beep sounded. It was followed by a woman's voice coming through the speakers.

"Hey, mom. It's me." Donna smiled gently to herself. "I just wanted to call and check up on you. You know, make sure you're ok?"

Donna took a deep breath. Her chest hurt, her head ached, and every bone in her body moaned in pain. She had not been 'ok' for many, many years. And still that hole in her heart remained. A blackness in the back of her mind. There was something… someone she had forgotten. Something so important, that she simply couldn't recall…

"I was hoping to come over in a few hours. Just to say hello. Bring you some lunch." Donna could hear the smile in her daughter's voice. She'd grown up. Grown up, gone to college, lived her dreams. All with the help, of course, of that lottery ticket she'd received as a present on her wedding day…

"And… I know that it's been a year since… since dad died. I don't think you should be alone today."

Today was _that _day? Donna glanced to the wedding photo again. Oh, she missed her husband more than she could begin to say, it was true. But time… time had lost its meaning for her long ago. It seemed that only a few days ago, her husband was sitting beside her, his hand linked in hers as the two of them read their book. It could not have been a year already, could it?

"So… I'll see you soon, all right?" Donna nodded once, slowly, though her daughter could not see her affirmative; in truth, she didn't even know that Donna could hear her to begin with. "I love you, mom."

Mom. She'd been a mother for more than thirty years now, and she still smiled whenever she heard the word, still could not believe it. Once, her children had needed her, depended on her, but now those roles were reversed. Now she needed them, depended on them. Such was life, she supposed.

Yes. Such was life, and life was good. She'd done everything she'd ever wanted to do. Fell in love, got married, had children, had a fulfilling career… she'd had it all.

So why did she feel so hollow inside?

She glanced to the book on her nightstand. Agatha Christie. She loved Agatha Christie. She wasn't sure why, but there was something about those books that made her… forget. Forget the life that she'd led, forget who she was right now. Become someone else, someone…

Someone…

She couldn't think of the word. She could never think of the word. She had been someone once, had been… she didn't know what she'd been. It frightened her sometimes. She would try and remember something about herself, something that she'd suppressed, and every time she did, fear would block her way. Fear kept her memories just out of her reach. That and a blackness that lingered where those memories should be, as insubstantial as smoke…

But she would have glimpses of that person, triggered by the strangest things. Agatha Christie novels, certainly. But other things. Wedding dresses. Pepper pots. Left turns. A man with a stutter…

All of these things that were so commonplace, so… normal. And yet, they all inspired some emotion with her, some nostalgia that she didn't understand. Her breathing started to become even more painful. The world was fading around the edges; that had been happening frequently lately. She closed her eyes, letting the blackness take her for a moment, the pain to recede…

"Do you want to remember?"

The voice was so very soft. So kind. It was accompanied by a strange sound; like a giant's breathing. No, it was more melancholy then that. It sounded like… a sigh. A sigh from the universe itself. As though the stars were crying, and only this echo of their breath could be heard…

"Do you want to remember?" That kind, gentle voice asked again. Donna opened her eyes as wide as she could, but she was just so tired. It was so hard to stay awake. She struggled to breathe as she observed the speaker before her.

But he was not what interested her; instead, it was the large, blue box behind him that brought forth that spilling flood of emotions, stronger then ever before, and yet still so unclear, still without reason. Her eyes welled up with tears; why couldn't she understand? Even after all these years of wondering, why couldn't she understand? Why couldn't she _remember?_

The man reached a pale hand towards her, his fingers long and thin. The movement brought her focus back to him. He had large brown hair that stuck up in crazy angles around his head. With the box behind him, she could almost form a clear picture of a memory. That hair was similar so someone else's…

"Do you want to remember, Donna Noble?" he asked in a soft, quiet whisper. He smiled so genuinely at her, with a young, sweet face and ice blue eyes that had seen more than hers ever could have. Eyes that twinkled like the starry sky above.

"My name…" She tried to breathe, but her lungs would not cooperate. And it was just so painful. But still she tried. "Isn't… Noble…anymore," she managed to say.

His smile grew, sending his eyes twinkling brighter. "I know. But you are one of the most Noble people I have ever met." He reached his hand towards her, so close that she could reach out and touch it with ease. "Do you remember why?"

"I don't… don't even remember _you_," She admitted in a croaking voice, unsure of whether or not this was even a dream. And yet, it felt so real. More so than the rest of reality itself.

"I know." The man seemed so strange, so odd. Wearing a jacket with elbow patches, suspenders, a bow tie… such a hodgepodge. Just like…

_Just like he was before._

Where had that thought come from? What did it mean? Donna's grasp on what had happened was strengthening, and then fading again. Who was she? Who was this man? Who had he been to her? Who had _she _been?

"I'm the Doctor," he told her, his voice the barest whisper.

The word did not send the memories flooding back, did not send that emotion of times forgotten running through her again. But the way he said it _did. _A brief glimpse; that was all, and then it vanished once again. But it was there. For just a moment, it was there. And Donna was that person again, that shining someone, that someone who was…

What?

That someone who was _what?_

She tilted her head up to the man, the 'Doctor'. She coughed violently a few times, then asked, "But you're not… _my _Doctor… are you?"

There seemed to be a double meaning to her words, one she didn't even comprehend. She was asking if he was one of the doctors that had been treating her for so long now, right? Or was there something else to it? Something deeper?

So many questions… the man laughed once, a tired sound, and yet… beautiful. It had been too many years since she'd heard this man laugh, even if it wasn't him, even if she couldn't remember him. "No. I'm not."

She nodded slowly; she sensed that both questions-even the one she had not meant to ask- were answered with that statement. She closed her eyes, the blackness claiming her for another long moment. She was not sure how long it was before they opened again, but the man was still there. As was the large blue police box behind him. A fitting backdrop for him, as though he could be no where else but with that box.

"Who…" She asked, then coughed again. Everything ached. She wanted to sleep, to drift away, but she had to know. She had to know before he left, had to know before _she _left. "Who was I, Doctor?"

His answering smile-as he seemed incapable of doing anything but smiling- was tired and sad. "Do you want to remember?"

She swallowed. Did she? She'd lived a good life without being that person, hadn't she? She'd been happy. She'd been free.

But she hadn't quite been _whole. _

Slowly, with a sense of time catching up to her, she nodded. "Please," She pleaded in a whisper. "I want to know what I… what I was…" She started to drift; no amount of struggling could keep her anchored to the Earth. She was falling, falling away into the sound of pounding rain, into the warm embrace of the man who she had loved and who had loved her in return…

And then a flash of light brought her back; light so bright that it seared through her, painful and hot. She bolted back into reality, gasping for air, her hands clenching the armrests painfully. Fire exploded behind her eyes, her head so hot, so fiery hot. She was burning…

She screamed as loud as her tortured lungs would allow, but then her eyes opened. And she saw. She saw everything.

_I was… I was…_

The world grew sharper, clearer. She knew so many things, so many facts and figures about the beautiful universe above her head. She knew of pain and loss, of things so dark and deep that they cut down straight through to the core of who she was. Emotions she had not felt for years boiled to the surface.

She remembered a man, a man who she had wanted to marry. She remembered what happened to him, she remembered the man who had saved her from a horrible fate…

She remembered monsters and nightmares, all made real. She remembered running. Running with a man by her side; the Doctor. But not _this _Doctor-but of course, he must have regenerated. She remembered what regenerated meant. She remembered his companion before her, Martha Jones, and the times they shared, saving the world and whatnot. Just like always.

She remembered his daughter, Jenny. She remembered a library, with shadows that devoured people, and a safe place within the library, where she had fallen in love once before, with a man who stuttered, a man who could or could not have been real.

She remembered Agatha Christie, and what _she _had forgotten. She remembered myths and legend, remembered Pompeii and Rose Tyler, Bad Wolf and the TARDIS. She remembered it all.

She remembered the Daleks. She remembered that she was not supposed to know these things, because if she did, her head would burn. But it no longer mattered; she was not long for this world, anyway, and it was worth it to know, worth it to remember who she had been. To stop questioning once and for all, to have all of those countless questions answered.

_I was…. I was…_

She remembered the times when she helped the Doctor take those stolen planets home. She remembered restoring Earth to its proper time and space. Remembered the Doctor's 'human clone' destroying all of the Daleks, wiping them out once and for all. She remembered the DoctorDonna, remembered how grateful all of those planets were. She remembered the songs they sang, remembered how they saw her.

They did not see her as the normal girl from earth, who couldn't get a proper job to save her life, who lived a pathetic and miserable existence. They did not remember her as the nobody she'd once seen herself as. They remembered her as their hero, a shining figure, who had vanished into the stars. Never to be seen again, but also never to be forgotten.

_Special._

_ I was special._

Tears streamed down her cheeks, blurring her vision. The pain was building in the back of her mind, but she no longer cared. She knew now; she knew who she once was. And she knew that who she once was would not be ashamed of who she was today; because, no matter what the rest of the world (and her mother) had told her in her life, Donna Noble had once been, and always would be, incredibly special.

As she blinked away the blurriness, she saw the Doctor, opening the TARDIS door with the snap of his fingers. He slowly walked inside.

"Thank you," She breathed, almost inaudibly. But he heard her anyway, and stopped, halting in the doorway.

He gripped the side of the TARDIS doorframe, then said, "You have always been so important, Donna Noble. Never forget that."

He swept into the TARDIS; again came the sigh of the universe; Donna closed her eyes, listening closely, and slowly allowed herself to be swept away into the sound.

And, with the song of the universe echoing in her head, Donna Noble finally allowed herself to sleep.


End file.
